Experienced, pragmatic – and soon at a crucial intersection of the traffic lights.
(Photo: imago images / Chris Emil Janßen)
Berlin The designated Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck ordered his house before the Greens voted on the coalition agreement with the SPD and FDP. The current Greens co-boss is bringing political heavyweights into the future ministry as state secretaries.
The head of office and coordinator of the Vice Chancellor will be the experienced budget politician and former Hamburg Senator for the Environment, Anja Hajduk, as a Green spokeswoman confirmed to the Handelsblatt on Tuesday.
The European politician and Attac co-founder Sven Giegold, Patrick Graichen from the Agora Energiewende and the State Secretary for Finance in Schleswig-Holstein, Udo Philipp, are to become further permanent state secretaries.
As State Secretary Hajduk is to coordinate the cooperation with other ministries, as “Der Spiegel” had first reported. She is a proven finance and budget expert and was most recently responsible for the budget of the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the budget committee of the Bundestag.
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She should benefit from the experience as a housekeeper: The Habeck Ministry is considered a key department for the restructuring of the economy towards climate neutrality. Disputes with the future finance minister Christian Lindner (FDP) about money for investments are inevitable.
Giegold is known for his fight against tax havens
Hajduk is considered a pragmatist: As Hamburg Senator, in 2008 she approved the construction of a new coal-fired power station in Hamburg-Moorburg, which the Greens had previously rejected as a “climate monster”. Hajduk was legally compelled to grant approval, but provided this with requirements under water law.
In the federal election in 2021, the former party leader of the Hamburg green alternatives list no longer stood. She was a member of the Bundestag from 2002 to 2008 and from 2013 to 2021. In between, she was Senator for Urban Development and the Environment in the first black-green coalition at state level under Hamburg’s Mayor Ole von Beust (CDU).
With Giegold and Graichen, who were the first to report in the “Manager Magazin”, Habeck wins further well-known personalities for his ministry. Giegold sits for the Greens in the European Parliament and is a recognized expert on economic and financial policy. The economist has made a name for himself above all for his fight against tax havens.
Graichen runs the Agora Energiewende think tank, which continuously supplies the Greens with turnkey concepts for implementing the energy transition. The graduate economist was already a civil servant in the Ministry of the Environment. He therefore knows exactly what makes federal ministries tick. Habeck, who lacks this experience, will benefit from this.
Philipp used to be a private equity manager
With the Finance State Secretary Philipp from Kiel, a former private equity manager is moving into the Ministry of Economic Affairs, who once founded the citizens’ movement Finanzwende with Giegold.
Habeck is filling his ministry with heavyweights even before the Greens members have approved the coalition agreement.
(Photo: imago images / Christian Grube)
Habeck is filling his ministry with heavyweights even before the Greens members have approved the coalition agreement. The result of their vote should be available on December 6th.
The posts for the parliamentary state secretaries are still open. The energy expert Ingrid Nestle and the economic politician Claudia Müller are traded there.
Meanwhile, another economic politician will not move into Habeck’s ministry, as some have assumed. Katharina Dröge, economic policy spokeswoman for the Greens in the last legislative period, announced in a letter on Tuesday that she wanted to become group leader. The letter is in the Handelsblatt. “We can only be successful as a team. And I would like to lead this team for the next few years as one of two group leaders, ”it says.
The previous parliamentary group spokesmen Kathrin Göring-Eckhardt and Anton Hofreiter had missed out on the distribution of ministerial offices in the new traffic light coalition. Both want to withdraw from their post according to Handelsblatt information.
With agency material
More: How green are the plans of the traffic lights?